Mistress Ruby Ties It Together: A Dominatrix Takes On Sex, Power, and the Secret Lives of Upstanding Citizens [Paperback]

Equal parts memoir, how-to and social satire, Mistress Ruby Ties it Together is a guided tour through New York's S underworld, where the author worked as a professional dominatrix to subsidize her writing career.  As Mistress Ruby, this former Catholic school girl took confessions from some of the country's most powerful men.  Within the sanctity of the dungeon, they revealed to her their darkest lusts, fears and frailties -- as well as their sincere desire to connect with the opposite sex.  Each of these provocative essays provides an insider's view of human deviation; together, they present a startling portrait of our everyday selves.

Mistress Ruby is a striking, candid, and humorous look behind the dungeon doors to a darker -- and often unexplored -- side of human nature.After a 12-year internment in Catholic school, Robin Shamburg studied journalism at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.  In 1995, she picked up the professional whip  -- on a dare -- and stayed for almost two years.  These essays originally appeared as the NYPress column Mistress Ruby's Whipping Post.  A novelist, journalist and screenwriter, she has written for GQ, Mademoiselle, and Penthouse Online.  She lives in Hoboken, New Jersey with her chihuahua, Carlos, and is working on her next book.My Life As A Dog

I'm here to tell you, having a double life ain't all it's cracked up to 'be. Sure, from the outside, it might seem romantic-kind of like having two lovers fighting over you-but ultimately, it just left me feeling queasy, with a constant sense of impending doom. You're always waiting for the day when the lies won't add up, when a single careless remark trlC¯